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Essie just started her own game of peek-a-boo with me; she is standing behind her highchair and peeking out at me with a huge smile. So so sweet. Some of her current abilities and habits to record right now:

• Holding steady at 10 teeth. Upper molars pushing on gums but not present.
• Language going faster than walking, but…
• Just (and I do mean “just”, as I am writing this) stood up all on her own, took five steps forward, then gently sat down, and clapped for herself. Then, she stood up, and walked the length of our dining room table to a chair at the other end. First steps on September 12, and well on her way to walking on Halloween!
• When asked what a frog says, Essie responds “bibbit, bibbit.” Cutest sounds we have ever heard.
• Nodding “yes” and shaking her head “no.”
• Chases the cat, saying “mao mao mao.” We asked her for months what the cat says, and she said “mao”. But, now when we ask how to say cat, she says “mao”. We’ve taken an adorable language misstep.
• Essie recognizes mama and “dahd” in photos.
• Showing her pictures of herself frequently elicits “babybabybabybaby”.
• Loves to do things and bring things. We can ask her surprisingly complex sentences whose syntax we have not taught her at all, which she has apparently simply absorbed. So, “can you bring the boy with the hat to mama?” And she’ll go find her Little People boy with a hat, and bring her to Mykala.
• Hats are “ats”. “Atatatat.”
• Pumpkins are “puhnka”. She’ll find a picture of one in a book and I hear her going puhnkapuhnkapuhnka. But, what surprised me most, is she paged through the book to find a frog, and then sure enough I hear her going bibbitbibbitbibbit.
• Does not love sitting on my lap while I play piano, but frequently wants to be picked up when I’m playing so I can get her something down from on top of the piano (where some of her toys and puzzles live). I don’t mind being a means to an end, but Mykala hears very few complete piano songs these days.

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I didn’t know a pronghorn was an animal. However, I have reaffirmed my love of Wikipedia:

Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the Prong Buck, Pronghorn Antelope, or simply Antelope, as it closely resembles the true antelopes of the Old World and one theory is that it fills a similar ecological niche due to convergent evolution. It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae.

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Thought he might be hungry.

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My sister (who just got her PhD in applied mathematics) Katy sent me a great article about a talking, learning 5-year-old intelligence research parrot named Alex (parrot) - Wikipedia:

He called an apple a “banerry”, which Pepperberg thought to be a combination of “banana” and “cherry”, two fruits he was more familiar with.

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More good stuff from Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, The Best Kids’ Books Ever. Here’s his final selection:

13. “Lad, a Dog” is simply the best book ever about a pet, a collie. This is to “Lassie” what Shakespeare is to CliffsNotes. The book was published 90 years ago, and readers are still visiting Lad’s real grave in New Jersey — plus, this is a book so full of SAT words it could put Stanley Kaplan out of business.

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Cute dogs. Tumbledry humor. Linked! Iz jus outta da tumbledryer.

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Dixie the Tiny Dog, by Peter Himmelman

And in the middle of the day I sit in the sun and I hear young children call me a wiener dog, perhaps that’s what I am
The Germanic term is dachshund, and I like that
I’m thin and I’m proud and no one can make fun of me
I can slip through the bars of a prison if I were ever incarcerated, but I don’t know what I would do wrong
My body yields no evil inclination, I’m a pure weiner dog

My name is Dixie, and I go dancing ‘cross the floor in the evening of the Johnsons when everyone is sleeping
Sometimes I look for a morsel of food, but they’re so clean they’re almost anal-retentive in their cleanliness habits and there’s nothing for me
But I don’t despair

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It may look like Mykala was Photoshopped into this picture, but she was, in fact, not.

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